Health and Social Care Update

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has responsibility for secondary care, will be visiting Cornwall to meet the ambulance trust—indeed, he will be meeting trusts more broadly.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Last month, my constituent Alan Suthers phoned 999 at 7 in the evening. His wife had suffered a stroke. He knew the signs—face, arm, speech, time—and the urgency of medical care. That care arrived five hours later, at 1 o’clock in the morning. The Health Secretary can have all the ambitions, expectations and targets she likes, but does she agree that she will not have the human resource to achieve them unless she addresses the workforce strategy and the 132,000 vacancies that currently exist in the NHS?